


Stand In The Fracture But Do Not Weep

by Entscheidungsproblem



Series: We Fill This Space [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst because give Javik a fucking break okay he's earned it, F/M, Happy Ending For Some, ME3 end game, Mass Effect 3, Post-Canon, Thane Krios Lives, almost but not quite dubcon later, indoctrination theory and the attendant theorizing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-05-21 10:17:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14913516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entscheidungsproblem/pseuds/Entscheidungsproblem
Summary: It's all badassery and games until some spoilsport bully starts wiping out entire civilizations.





	1. Prologue: Wrex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Barn's burnt down --_   
>  _now_   
>  _I can see the moon"....Mizuta Masahide, poet, doctor, samurai_

“Where is he?” she almost screeched at the small crowd blocking the tent flap.

“Liara!” Wrex boomed from inside the tent. The crowd parted to let her in as she ran, close to hysterics, into the thick arms of the krogan. She couldn’t help it. She was exhausted, angry and relieved, then angry all over again. Her feet left the ground and air was squeezed out of her lungs for a few seconds before she was dropped unceremoniously back on her feet. She wasn’t crying, not really. Despite the tears streaming freely on her face, she just continued talking. As if she wasn’t crying.

“I was just over at your camp,” she said. “I didn’t see you, so I didn’t land.” The raspy, cutting edge of her voice was completely lacking the serenity that had been Liara T’soni before the beam. Everything was neatly separated now—before the beam and the tragic after that was still unfolding.

“On my way here as soon as your messenger left,” Wrex replied. His voice was hoarse, too, if that was even possible. His left hand was wrapped in thick bandage. It looked haphazard but clean. She took note that someone in the west camp had at least an operational knowledge of how to bandage a hand with clean cloth.

“I hope I didn’t pull you away from any emergency,” she said. “I didn’t know who else to call, you’re the only one I know who is close enough.”

Wrex stared at her for a split-second, blinked and then erupted with an inappropriate gale of explosive laughter. The sound was so unexpected, nearly everyone who heard it looked up. The air was acrid and the smog made it difficult to see where it was thickest. But the upturned faces peered into the haze with suspicion. When shock was the only thing fueling action, hope could be a dangerous thing and should not be entertained on faith alone, especially when the consequences of disappointment were catastrophic. But the krogan laughed so hard, the force of it cleared the dust and smoke around his face so that they could see the peaks and valleys on his curdled face. The exhausted volunteers couldn’t help but stare. 

“Everything is an emergency, Liara, all the worlds are on fire,” Wrex boomed loudly, eyes flashing. “And we are alive to live it!” 

“Now,” he said, grabbing the side of his armor and making a dramatic show of straightening it. “What is it you need fixing?”

It was Liara’s turn to laugh. She was too tired, it came out as a chuckling sob. She angled her head towards one of the dig sites.

“Javik needs to be restrained, but the doctors don’t want to tranquilize him,” she said. “I can’t do it by myself.”

Wrex was already striding quickly even though he had no idea where to go. Liara had to grab his thick arm, and pull him to the opposite direction, towards one of the brightly-lit sections of the rubble where her drones were zipping and hovering like botflies (or carrion birds, but she didn’t want that idea to linger too long in her head).

“Wrex,” she called out to him. Her voice was quiet, but he stopped, searching her face. “Wrex,” she called again, trying to anchor herself to his name. To her, it was the only solid thing she had this very moment. “Wrex,” she said for the third time.

“Liara, you’re killing me here.”

“We found her,” she said, trembling. “Javik found her. Shepard is alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About to start my second ME playthrough now. BRB.


	2. What Is Past Is Prologue Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The past is never dead. It's not even past." .... William Faulkner

He wanted a moment to stare into space. But Javik knew instantly it was a mistake to have gone into this room. _They_ were here. The heady cocktail of overlapping pheromones assaulted him with a thick slobber that clogged the pores on his skin. But the lattice of a billion stings on his skin was nothing compared with the very real and sudden heavy compression of his chest. It was a physical response he had no words for, if he cared to name it (he didn’t). He had to catch his own stagger ( _they are joined,_ _fool;_ _she is not yours_ ), holding his body perfectly still while he struggled to control his breathing. _This pain is nothing._ _My_ _people are proud; yet, they are dead._ He cleared his throat to cover his gasping breath. It was a misstep that he was able to hide only because the creatures were ignorant.

“Javik!” Shepard’s voice was bright and cheerful. _No, this_ _pain is_ _worse._

The prothean was momentarily confused. He had never heard his name said with such lilting breeze. He had just stumbled into their rare moment of privacy ( _in so public a place)_ ; why was she pleased? Vakarian was out of armor, reading from a datapad. More datapads were strewn across the low table; there were graphs and space maps projected on the blank wall. _Ah, of course_. She was grateful to have him join the conversation, no doubt about the war. If not for their paired stench, he would have been almost willing to participate.

“Come sit with us, we were just talking about you,” Shepard continued, her face breaking so easily into a smile—a comfortable ease that he saw only when the turian was present. Vakarian shifted on the couch where they sat close together. But only just. His long arm did not move from her shoulder, his leg crossed over his knee, still touching her thighs. She, on the other hand, did not move at all. Perfectly content, she was draped about the turian like a luxurious cloth.

“I do not wish to disturb, Commander. I only wanted...” He gestured towards the large window of the lounge. _I should not have to explain myself_ _to these creatures._

“C’mon, Javik,” Vakarian said. “Hang out with us a little.” The turian swaggered even when slouching. It was a horrific thing to witness and Javik should be enraged, but all he felt was envy. The invitation, unsurprisingly, was entirely sincere. Unlike most of the humans on the ship, the turian (to him) was unreservedly open while being mostly misunderstood by the human crew as hopelessly opaque.

Javik gave them nothing to indicate his sentiment either way. But he positioned himself close to the window and pondered the mass effect field that enveloped the _Normandy._ It was visible only as fleeting distortions in the background of stars.

As happened more and more often in this time, Javik resigned to the struggle of the moment. Every little surrender, even if they accomplished important goals he had set for himself, filled him with shame and deep sorrow. War exacted sacrifices, he understood this. Just not this kind—triffling and irrelevant to the actual cause of survival and triumph. But he knew if he didn’t wage these secret little wars, he would take Shepard for his own and kill everyone who opposed him while he pounded into her. Pride, in a circuitous and convoluted way, was the only thing that saved him. Even vengeance was not enough. But because he was Vengeance itself, nothing less than uncompromising and enthusiastic reciprocation was acceptable. That was pride and he owned it.

In this, Javik knew that Shepard also saved him from himself. To his unrelenting anguish, he could plainly see there was nothing about her that had not become woven with the turian. He knew, too, that while the reaper war might have started differently for her, it was more than that now. That she was _also_ saving the galaxy while fighting the reapers was now only one of the many consequences of her wish for the turian to live. It forced him to marvel at how she took something so small and inconsequential, and forced it to encompass the fate of an entire galaxy. It humbled him.

“We were just going over some after-action reports. Mind taking a look at this with us, Javik?” Shepard asked, as she got up from the sofa. She turned around and projected a single image on the wall, so they could all see.

The prothean flinched invisibly in the way only a prothean could—his body shutting down even more sensory pathways than he had already been forced to decommission in the company of humans (out of necessity, to preserve his sanity). Shepard’s voice sounded far and away; it took even more effort to pull himself back into the moment.

“Why are we not doing this in the war room,” Javik asked, his tone even and ever indifferent. Even the commander had gotten used to the prothean asking questions in a voice that could not overstate how little he cared about the answers.

“We were having snacks, eating is not allowed in there,” Vakarian answered.

“Crumbs in the servers,” Shepard added, crushing a loud, crispy chip in her mouth. “The techs don’t like it.”

Javik did not say anything. He gestured towards the image on the wall. “Palaven,” he said. He had read the reports.

“Yes,” Shepard said, sitting back down next to Vakarian. She watched as Javik scanned the layout, all his eyes flicking from icon to icon, cross-matching with the scrolling numbers. She was trying to read him.

Inside of a single seemingly inocous glance at Vakarian (who was looking back at him), Javik snatched the loose shreds of his senses and used the merciful distraction to tamp down the throbbing pain in his chest. Only then was he able to give the battle layout a real scan, finally able to wrestle a semblance of space inside the reaper war that has become ( _oh the irony_ ) his refuge from Shepard.

This was the so-called “Fifteen-Minute Plan” that emerged out of the smouldering ruins of the turian colony, Taetrus. The staccato of reaper invasion of Earth, and the batarian homeworld, Khar'shan, had ended with the fall of the turian colony. It was a blow that the turians were unaccustomed to dealing. Javik was certain that without the preparations made by the turian reaper advisor (he scoffed at the vague title but privately marveled at the extent of resources it was able to marshal), Palaven would have summarily fallen. Thus far, the turian homeworld was still fighting.

Turian battleships, it would appear. He had read the Alliance version of the after-action debrief. But he could tell more than they thought from the terse account describing the first turian counter-attack on the reapers on Palaven. From Shepard’s map, the turian positions were obvious—the fastest vessels closest to the reapers, with dreadnaughts surrounding the periphery. The turian military had been developing a maneuver that took advantage of the gaps in reaper counter-maneuvers, and at great expense. It was childishly simple—taunt-and-flee. The reapers were mammoth and moved like gel—this was true. The turian deadnaughts, while not shielded as well as reapers, also had active, rapidly-shifting camouflage—a gift from the salarian navy. Combined with the firepower of turian vessels, they have proved useful in bringing down a handful of reapers before they could position themselves for their macabre harvest on Palaven. It worked for a couple of offensive forays but the reapers were nothing if not fast-learners. When they did learn, the cost in turian lives and assets were catastrophic. Now, the turian military was giving up space battles in order to take advantage of one edge they did have—experience in atmo, backed up by the krogan horde and an aggressive, trained and well-armed civilian turian population.

In the beginning, Javik had doubted the extent to which the krogan could be compelled to operate under an alliance command, let alone under the turian command or even a joint krogan-turian command. What the krogan did not know (but was reported in the Alliance account of the incident) was that if not for the intervention of a stray salarian Spectre, none of what came next would have been possible.

The krogan had sent what appeared to the turian command as a strictly exploratory contingent—fifty thousand infantry in five brigades, krogan-style. It was easily categorized as “exploratory” because had it been a real show of force, there would have easily been an actual horde of several hundred thousand angry, aggressive and well-trained krogan. After the initial, costly almost-victory against in Trebia, the commander of the turian forces on Palaven had convened what krogan alphas deigned to show up (most of them didn’t). And then...well, they watched a movie. The rest of the meeting was, in essence, theater.

The turians had recorded the meeting and shared the entire account specifically with the Normandy. Shepard ran the video and Javik watched in rapt attention.

The salarian Spectre (identified in the terse reports only as Buhd) entered the crowded meeting room carefully dressed with the most subtle hints. He wore a military uniform but it was, unusually, white. It looked almost like a lab coat. The right crest on his head was missing, as well. He spoke in what salarians would have recognized as a strange affectation but to his audience, it evoked the rapid-fire excitement of the salarian hero who had just died curing the genophage with Commander Shepard. Then, pausing just long enough for mental connections to be made, he showed the assembled turian and krogan commanders a simulation of the battle for securing the Trebia relay—a singularly valiant if catastrophic project intended to keep turian supply lines open across Trebia space. What Buhd wanted to show was (a) the efficiency and genius with which turian forces attempted to unroll their strategy and (b) the staggering, instantaneous way in which the reapers reacted and ultimately overwhelmed the turians despite the latter outnumbering the former five to one.

“This, gentlemen,” Buhd said in an unusually shrill voice even for a salarian, gesturing towards the holo. “...is our enemy.”

Buhd paused, turning away from the screen. He crossed one arm over his chest and rested his other arm on it while absent-mindedly tapping his fingers on his chin. Only two of the krogan commanders present ever personally met Mordin Solus. But to Buhd, these were the only two krogans who counted. For these two men, Buhd was putting on the full show.

“This is why turians, krogan and salarians must cease to exist in this space,” he said slowly. “There are only reapers and then there is us.”

The krogan alphas were stunned into silence. The salarian knew this was a belligerent group of aggressive krogan commanders who came to power through both political and military machinations, not just physical prowess which was merely a prerequisite of all krogan conflict. This was what he counted on—the spark behind the violence in their eyes. Before the assembled group could muster any kind of reaction, Buhd replayed the simulation, even slowing down the split-screen moment when five reaper dreadnaughts several lightyears apart were attacked individually but turned simultaneously towards Palaven to launch the attack that was still ongoing.

When Buhd started a third playback, one of his target krogan grumbled “Enough!” before turning around to face his co-commanders. “Reapers,” he said, raising his left hand. “Us,” he finished, making a fist with his left. That was all it took. The krogan had been swayed and with that, the meeting was adjourned. The krogan horde would be ordered on its way within the hour.

What was not in any of the reports and Javik would not have known was how, later that night, Buhd retreated to his tent, popped a couple of painkillers and washed the paint off his throbbing head. _You do what it takes to get things done_ , he thought to himself, waiting for the painkillers to kick in. The concealer paint had done its job; no one noticed that his crest had been freshly cut in roughly the same way Mordin Solus’ had been, for the precise purpose of invoking a general notion without shoving it down.

Dinu Buhd--former star of Repertory Talat and now council Spectre with a headache--knew the value of subtle symbols. He had no qualms about using every single available lever he had in order to achieve his objectives. Turians were hard to sway because their senses were acute; humans were even harder if only because they seemed to have evolved with deception embedded into their cultural template. But the krogan—the krogan was easy. They could probably reflect on this small detail later but that would be later. Way later. After they have already performed what they were eased into thinking was their own impetus. No one needed to ever know what a single Spectre was able to accomplish in that meeting.

Nevertheless, Javik still gleaned with mild amusement that Buhd _was_ the reason the krogan finally sent its horde to Palaven. He would be interested in meeting this _salarian_ , indeed. Such operatives were rarely identifiable in the prothean military. Towards the end, most of them turned out to have already been lost to indoctrination. Even if they were not, they were summarily executed—victims of the last flailing panic of prothean defeat. But he would remember that salarian face and decided that if they both lived through this war, he would seek out this Buhd of the frog people. There would be much to entertain.

It was also worth pointing out that as a result of that small theater, the ground war with reaper forces was still ongoing on Palaven and on Menae instead of handing the reapers an easy victory. But Javik knew neither of these engagements mattered in the great scheme of things. They were useful only as far as rehearsals for joint turian and krogan forces could go. Beyond that, the bigger problem was forming a cohesive response between disparate forces across the galaxy in order to defeat the overwhelming enemy. His people had tried attrition, and he knew exactly how it failed. It could never succeed—not when your own dead was being utilized as fuel and fodder against you by your enemy.

"So, Javik," Shepard interrupted his thoughts, looking uneasy. The prothean regarded her coldly. Ignoring his stare, she went on. "You know we haven't really officially declared that you exist."

"Are you turning me over to your superiors, Commander?" he cut her off to the chase.

"What? No!" Shepard shot back, visibly irritated that he thwarted her inclination to ease into the subject.

“Then what would you have me do?”

Shepard and Vakarian exchanged a look. “Jeez, lighten up, Javik,” Shepard said. “I just want you to look this over and write down what you think. I don’t have to explain to you how important your military experience and recollections are.”

For a moment, Javik could not sort through the Shepard’s discomfort. She had always been able to say what was on her mind, exactly how she thought them. She of all people had to be aware of how pointless it was to cushion her language when speaking with him or, indeed, _any_ prothean. It was possible, he thought with derisive bemusement, that she found the freedom of pointlessness to be unsettling.

“Look,” Shepard said gently. _Look_. It was a verbal cue that always struck Javik as curious. Humans, with their two woefully inadequate eyes, have to be told to zoom in and focus as if their brains could not hold more than one thought at a time. “I want you to know you have options.”

“We know war,” Shepard said slowly. “But you are literally the only person alive with your perspective. So write down your thoughts; we can say this is the _Normandy_ feedback and leave it at that. There will be a lot of shit but I’ll deal with it.”

“Or, we can also officially declare that you’re on the Normandy and consult with the war council in that capacity. It will be easier to define your operating parameters if we make it official,” she finished. “Either way, what I will have you do is tell us how you conducted your war against the reapers.”

Shepard and Vakarian exchanged a look.

“You realize both the Alliance and the Hierarchy want you off this ship and in their building,” Vakarian added. “The salarians have also been making overtures. They’re subtle but not less insistent. Only the asari and the krogan have been quiet, I think they’re afraid of you.”

Shepard stood up, then, and walked towards the window where he stood, still looking into space. He could feel her planting her feet firmly on the floor, hands clasped behind her back in a stance that was second-nature to her when asserting command.

“As your commanding officer, I am giving you these options,” Shepard said. “You can stay in my crew. You can go with the Alliance Command or the Hierarchy or even the hanar. I can’t presume to judge where you think you will be most useful.”

“But you’re stuck with the after-action review, strategy meetings and the paperwork, in whatever capacity you decide,” she concluded. “You are one of our very limited advantages in this war, you can not be just traipsing around with the ground team. The most important benefit of your being here is what you know; what you have seen and what you learned to be right, wrong or useless about fighting the reapers.”

“In all of these options, you’ll have to take vidcalls,” Shepard added with a chortle that sounded gleefully juvenile. _Schadenfreude._

Javik remained motionless. He was sure neither human nor turian could tell if he was even listening. He could, however, measure Shepard’s impatience, the frown on her face bordering on petulance. She was glaring at him; pinning him to the floor with the look that he had seen her wield like a weapon. _You have no idea what this_ _offer_ _means_. He was dumbfounded. He was being tempted with the gift of distance from her; from _this_. The freedom to choose was both astounding and insulting. In his time, he would have snarled at the mere suggestion that he would abandon the bleeding edge of the reaper war to save himself from the agony of her vicinity. But...he would be free of and far from this constant and unremitting… _intertwining._ He would be libera--

“As your friend, I selfishly prefer that you stay with the _Normandy_ ,” Vakarian mumbled from the couch, surprising them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"What if you can bring your Isaac Newton into the future?" Garrus asked._   
>  _"I'll tell him to stop snorting mercury," she replied._   
>  _"What, you won't even tell him about the electrons?" he exclaimed, incredulous._   
>  _"I'll tell him to shut up about calculus, that's for damn sure."_


End file.
